Serula
Serula is the capital city of Europa, a moon of Jupiter. It is a massive artificial city anchored to the top layer of permafrost on the bottom of Europa's frozen oceans, connected to the lunar surface by way of several planetary elevators. The technology and resources making Serula's unique position was made possible by the heavy backing of Silhouette Technologies, making them a de-facto governing body of the station, though the station does have its own council to mediate and make local and community decisions. The primary language spoken is Senglast, and there is no presiding secondary language, due to the city's vast diversity in terms of nationality (though English, as it tends to be, is the most common language before Senglast itself.) Location and Architecture The majority of Serula is located completely underneath a 100-kilometre thick frozen layer of ice on the surface of Europa, anchored in position by the action of large support beams, miniature gravity wells, and the acting buoyancy of the city itself. Its position lets it exploit passive energy production through the action of hydroelectric motion, as well as providing the city with an inexhaustible amount of water. Oxygen is pumped directly into the station from the moon's atmosphere after being filtered by filtration stations located on the surface of the moon. The only publicly accessible way into the city is through surface planetary elevators, Surface buildings, such as oxygen filtration stations and planetary elevators, are staffed by a full crew of automated AI operator units, as well as a skeleton crew of human attendees. Serula is separated into two districts, creating the impression of two distinct halves of the city. The eastern portion of Serula is its commercial and living districts, while the western portion of the city is primarily made up of privately owned workshops, laboratories, and also houses a majority of the city's maintenance structures. While the eastern portion of Serula is populated by lauded elite and those who prefer to live in the lap of luxury, the western portion of Serula is mostly populated by privately studying scientists, the working class of Serula, and less scrupulous individuals who have come to Serula to escape the law. Much of Serula is constructed from lightweight, pressure-treated, and super-durable materials such as carbon-reinforced acrylic glass, alloys of aluminium, and firmamentum, ''a space-age alloy. Much of Serulan architecture exploits its position underwater, incorporating transparent sections that reveal the Europan ocean just beyond the walls. Citizens of Serula often compare Serula's rooms and corridors to be like an aquarium. Serula is designed to be as compartmentalised as possible in the event of a breach. This has led to much of Serula being formed entirely from long hallways and small rooms branching off of it, with a single room often having multiple entrances from multiple directions, lessening the impact flooding would have on movement around the city. The exceptions to this placement are Serula's city squares, which are large sections of the city that have been reinforced with stronger materials, and feature less transparent sections than other sections of the city. Most views out into the Europan ocean from city squares are actually holographic projections rather than true windows. History Foundation Serula was founded under Project ''CHRYSANTHEMUM as a Silhouette Technologies joint effort with several other UNE and UMC officials to create an off-world, self-sustaining colony on Europa, a moon of Jupiter. The project begun in 2212, was completed in 2228, and established itself as its own functioning city-state with the Serulan Decree of Lunar Independence in 2231. Despite technically being its own sovereign country, much of the station (and its politics) is controlled by Silhouette Technologies. Destruction Serula was lost to the Haze in 2258, along with the majority of the human race in the Human-Haze conflict. Serulan officials decided that sectioning off parts of the city with water would slow the rate at which the Haze could breach the city, but this only bunched the city's population closer together, at which point human infection rapidly progressed until the entire population fell under Haze control in little under 2 months. Trivia * The name Serula comes from the word Cerulean, a shade of blue.